


chasing the only

by addandsubtract



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-17
Updated: 2010-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/pseuds/addandsubtract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler was born twenty minutes after Cameron. Their mother always said it was because Tyler didn’t wanted to leave the comfort of his mother’s womb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chasing the only

**Author's Note:**

> or the [tsn_kinkmeme](http://tsn_kinkmeme.livejournal.com) prompt _WINKLECEST. I NEED ME SOME WINKLECEST. preferably the angsty kind._

Tyler was born twenty minutes after Cameron. Their mother always said it was because Tyler didn’t wanted to leave the comfort of his mother’s womb. Tyler knows that it’s because second is always second best, and Cameron beat him to it.

 

When they’re seven, their mom leaves them in the back yard to play while she finishes making them tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. They’re playing tag, and Cameron’s it. He pushes Tyler to the ground, falling on top of him.

“Got you,” he says, but he doesn’t get up. The grass is wet underneath Tyler’s elbows and exposed neck. Cameron isn’t that heavy. His smile is close to Tyler’s face.

Cameron flops over onto his back, staring at the sky. His arm is still close enough to brush Tyler’s, but Tyler doesn’t mind. It’s nice, lying outside on the grass and not talking.

Later, they’ll argue about who won. Their mother will get fed up before a consensus is reached, and tell them to stop arguing.

 

At thirteen, they still share a room. Cameron discovered the art of masturbation first, but Tyler does it more frequently. He’s louder. He knows what Cameron sounds like, though, the choked off noises he swallows in his throat, the soft rustling of his sheets, the whisper of skin on skin. Sometimes Tyler pretends to be asleep, and he listens. Sometimes he counts the minutes. Sometimes he races them.

 

Tyler rows first. He rows first, and Cameron waits three weeks before he comes with Tyler to the gym and says, causally, “I think I might try that rowing thing you’re doing.”

Tyler glances over his shoulder. Cameron is still wearing his sweatshirt and jeans, leaning casually against the glass wall separating the rowing machines from the rest of the gym. His arms are crossed, and he’s half-smiling, as if to say, _I can take anything I want from you._ Tyler’s in his shorts and tank top. He feels exposed.

“Fine,” he says. He faces front and ignores his white-knuckled hands.

 

Cameron’s first real girlfriend is a senior in high school. Tyler and Cameron are sixteen, but already bigger than most of the other guys their age. Her name is Allison, and Cameron takes her out on a nice date to a nice restaurant and they see a socially acceptable movie afterward, and then he takes her home.

Her parents are out, so they go up to her room, and they make out. She’s not a virgin, and he is, and he doesn’t tell her. He doesn’t lose his virginity that night, but it’s a near thing.

Tyler is in their room when Cameron gets back. His hair is mussed, and he’s smiling too wide. Tyler knows immediately.

“Have fun?” Tyler’s voice is snide, and Cameron isn’t stupid, but he chooses not to respond in kind.

“Yep,” he says, and pulls his shirt over his head. He has two hickeys on his collarbone, and Tyler stares at them until Cameron’s freed his head from his shirt. Then he looks away.

Tyler loses his virginity first, it turns out. But only because he’s trying.

 

Tyler pushes his hair out of his face and grins. Travis is leaning against one of the windowsills, and they’re in Cindy’s bedroom, which is technically off-limits, but Tyler doesn’t give a shit. It’s a party; she should lock her door if she wants to keep people out.

“You know how I can tell you and your brother apart?” Travis unzips his hoodie. He’s not wearing a shirt underneath it. Tyler takes three steps across the room and smoothes his fingers over Travis’s bare shoulders.

“How?” He keeps his voice low. He can feel Travis shudder.

“You’re needier than he is. It shows on your face.”

Tyler laughs, and pushes Travis back against the window. He’s not wrong, but – he’s not entirely right, either.

 

“You didn’t.” Cameron’s mad. He closes off all facial expressions when he’s angry, but it doesn’t actually hide anything.

They go off to college in six months. Tyler’s slept with most of the men’s swim team and half of the cheerleaders. Cameron’s been dating Allison for almost two years, long distance. Neither of these things say much about them.

“I promise I was safe,” Tyler says, a parroted version of their mother’s voice. Cameron’s hands ball up into fists at his sides. “I washed their sheets. They’ll never know.”

“I don’t get you at all.” Cameron sounds like he believes himself, but Tyler just laughs at him.

“That’s not the trouble, Cam. The trouble is that you get every single thing that I do.”

 

Harvard isn’t really that different than high school. They don’t share a room, their freshman year, but it doesn’t make much difference. Tyler’s roommate is named Divya. He doesn’t take shit, and Tyler immediately likes him. Enough not to fuck him. Enough not to fuck him over.

Cameron’s roommate drops out a month and a half into the first semester, and is never replaced. Divya meets Cameron early on, but it’s not until after that first month and a half that the three of them start to hang out together.

At the end of November, they get so drunk that Tyler passes out on the floor. He wakes up feeling nauseous, like his mouth is full of cotton, with a pounding head. He doesn’t move immediately, and after a moment he’s glad of it. There’s a choked off moan from the bed, one that he recognizes, and he carefully turns his head. He can see Divya’s naked back, the top of his ass disappearing underneath Cameron’s sheets. Cameron’s hands look huge on his shoulders. They’re moving with intent, and Tyler watches Divya suck a mark onto one of Cameron’s collarbones. He closes his eyes. When Cameron comes, he recognizes the sound.

 

Divya and Cameron don’t fuck consistently, but they do, sometimes. It doesn’t really bother Tyler because he doesn’t actually want to fuck Divya. They’re not dating.

He and Cameron train and train and train. Tyler watches the muscles in his brother’s back, and thinks about the oar slicing through water.

 

In the locker-room after practice, both of them shower. In April, they’ve beaten their own best time twice. Cameron is laughing as he steps into the stall, and Tyler’s still tugging off his shorts. He can see Cameron’s naked body through the two-inch gap between the shower curtain and the wall. There is nothing about Cameron’s body that he doesn’t know – every divot, ever muscle. He knows the stories behind all of Cameron’s scars, knows every terrible haircut. He knows how both of them smile, and the differences between them.

He doesn’t know what Cameron would do if he pushed the shower curtain open. He doesn’t know what Cameron would do if he stepped into the stall behind him. He doesn’t know what Cameron would do if he touched Cameron’s skin with intent.

He’s not sure he wants to. He just wants to know everything.

 

Cameron has an internship that summer. Tyler’s working at their father’s office, for lack of anything better to do. It’s the longest they’ve been apart since they were born.

Tyler didn’t think he’d mind. He thought life would be the same as it ever was, except that, maybe, he’d pretend for a while. That he didn’t have a brother, that he didn’t have to share his face. That he didn’t have to share his talent.

It’s not like that.

Two weeks in, Cameron calls. Tyler tries not to feel relieved.

“How is it?” he asks. _I miss you,_ he doesn’t say.

“Boring,” Cameron says, “but it’ll look nice on a resume.”

Tyler snorts. “Always thinking ahead.”

“That’s me,” Cameron says. There’s a pause. Tyler doesn’t know what to say – talking to Cameron on the phone is like living without two of his senses. They communicate as much through glances, mannerisms, as they do anything else.

“Cam –” he starts. _I miss you,_ he doesn’t finish. “I’ll talk to you later,” he says, instead.

 

They meet Mark Zuckerberg their junior year. He’s awkward, and Tyler doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like anything about him, except that he’s a good programmer.

He and Cameron train and train and train. Tyler wears his sunglasses propped up on top of his head, and focuses on the sweat beading between Cameron’s shoulder blades.

 

The same day they find out about thefacebook.com, Tyler punches a wall so hard that he almost breaks the small bones in his fingers. He splits three knuckles, but it’s not anything.

“I know you’re chivalrous, Cam,” he says, licking the blood off of his hand. Cameron is hovering like he doesn’t know precisely what to do. “But Zuckerberg doesn’t give a shit. Second is second best, and you know it.”

Tyler suspects that Cameron knows what he’s talking about, but Cameron was born first. It’ll take him longer to reach the same conclusion.

Cameron just grabs Tyler’s wrist, and tugs him toward their bathroom. His fingers are callused in exactly the same way that Tyler’s are. He uses the same amount of force to turn on the tap. He runs the water over Tyler’s hand, carefully scrubbing with hand soap, and Tyler watches the furrows of his brow.

Tyler leans his head against Cameron’s collarbone and breathes in. Cameron lets him.

 

They lose the race, the one that matters, and Tyler knows, who cares how _close_ it was. Second is not first.

He rescues Cameron from a conversation with the mother of a member of the opposite team, and herds him into the bathroom. The wallpaper screams old Victorian, and the light fixture looks old enough to be original to the building. Tyler turns the lock on the door, and he grabs the sides of Cameron’s face with both hands, and just looks at him. He swipes one thumb over Cameron’s cheekbone. He is so disappointed.

It’s Cameron who kisses him. Pushes him against the sink, grabs the fabric of his shirt, and kisses him. Tyler is surprised. Cameron has surprised him for the first time. Cameron’s mouth is slick, and hot, and there’s that choked off moan in the back of his throat when they pull apart.

“Ty.” Cameron’s eyes are wild, like he’s still unsure, and how can he be, really? This is Tyler. Cameron is breathing too fast, but then he pushes his hand through the hair on the back of Tyler’s head, cupping the curve of Tyler’s skull. His mouth is red from Tyler’s teeth.

Someone tries the doorknob, finds it locked, and then knocks. Neither of them say anything. Tyler imagines that he can see the pulse jump in Cameron’s neck, but it might just be his own heart beating. He isn’t sure. He doesn’t want to be.

Cameron bites his lower lip. Tyler leans in again.

 

“So were suing,” Cameron says. Divya and Tyler have been agreed from the beginning. Cameron is slow to anger, and maybe that’s a good thing, usually, but not here.

Tyler can see the marks he left on Cameron’s neck. He wants to place his teeth there again and suck. He wants to hear Cameron’s ragged breathing against his ear. It’s not weird, not to them.

“Yeah,” Tyler says. “We’re suing.”

It won’t matter. They’ve lost both races.

“Fine,” Cameron says. The sheets rustle as he moves. He straddles Tyler’s thighs, naked as the day they were born. His skin is cool and dry, but not for long.

Tyler places his teeth over the marks he left. Cameron’s hands push against his shoulders. Tyler recognizes all of the sounds that they make.


End file.
